Was it worthy of the true
Earl of Bellingham to wander among wilds and fastnesses, weeping for a
dead wife, or raving at a false friend, when England's throne tottered
under its legitimate Sovereign, and the lowest of the people, (like owls
and satyrs in the capital of Assyria) fixed their habitations in the
pleasant palaces where luxury late reigned! He felt that he had too long
behaved like a woman, pining in secret when he ought to have acted;
while his faithful consort, with masculine courage, opposed her tender
frame to the tempest, and, at length, sunk beneath the added terrors of
his imbecility. His weakness in lamenting an irremediable evil, was the
fault to which he owed the loss of his invaluable Isabel. He would now
shew how truly he deplored that loss, by changing moody reflection into
vigorous action, and by becoming a protector and support to the family
to which he had hitherto been a burden. To such a state of mind, the
situation of the King supplied a powerful impetus, and Dr. Beaumont saw,
with pleasure, that loyalty was likely to give full scope to those fine
qualities, which had hitherto, like smothered fire, consumed the fabric
in which they were engendered.
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